


On the Bench

by garnetmantle



Category: Avengers
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:14:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnetmantle/pseuds/garnetmantle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They knew each other so well. They’d worked together for so long under conditions that forced dependence on them both, the battlefield dependence of one soldier on another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Bench

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tieleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/gifts).



> I was provoked by tieleen, and attempted a 500 word drabble, but this happened instead. This was shown without my authorization to a third party, who responded in part:
> 
> //Ahahahaahahahahahahahhhha Clint is such a dick. <3<3<3<3<3<3//
> 
> Thus I posted it. None of this is my fault.

Clint knew as soon as he moved that he was committed. He hadn’t had time to consider tactics, to make any plans, and determination was all he had in the moment to make up for it. Natasha didn’t make mistakes, but his sudden explosion into movement had managed to surprise her. He knows, as he lunges over her small body, that he has about eight seconds to get this done on his terms.

They knew each other so well. They’d worked together for so long under conditions that forced dependence on them both, the battlefield dependence of one soldier on another. In a bad light, and eventually even in a good one, that had turned into something that looked like trust. Whatever Natasha had been expecting from this meeting, she had never expected him to go for her without a word.

He’d asked her to meet him, and she’d come. She’d sauntered across the park, a professional woman taking a moment to wander around the fountains and relax, and taken her seat beside him on the bench. Her entire demeanor was faultless, distractedly casual in a way that was always only an act with her, but she was good at it, so very good. Then, for just an instant as she crossed her legs beside him, she had slanted a look his way over her cellphone and her sunglasses, and there had been a flash of greeting and warmth running just ahead of her ever-active situational assessment.

He had taken ruthless advantage of the moment’s lapse, and that alone would be something he knew he would pay for, in the hard coin of pain and unending watchfulness, knowing that no security would ever be enough. 

Even going that far, he’d only bought himself one chance, one opening to use his greater reach and weight to pin her to the bench where wood met the iron armrest, to get hold of her wrist with both hands and bring her arm around.

He knew with certainty of three moves she could’ve used in that moment to kill him, and knew _she_ knew probably a half-dozen more. Again, he exploited the gift of years of working and sparring together; he was trusting her cultivated habit with him to always, always pull her strikes. He gambled on it, hoping it would allow him access for those brief seconds until her conscious mind could over-rule spinal reflex.

It worked, too. Just long enough.

In the next moment he was spun off the bench with a speed that had him glimpsing the burnished copper summer sky twice before he hit the ground on his stomach at her feet.

He stretched his arms out and crossed them beneath his head, even as Natasha’s feet planted themselves on his neck and back. It could have been worse. The ground was soft, thick with short grass, and he’d missed the concrete base of the bench.

Natasha’s voice was restrained only by the faintest flicker of reluctant tolerance. “You’re an idiot. You do know that?” He heard a sound, and knew she was licking her wrist.

Clint grinned. She couldn’t have seen it, but the knowing went more than one direction, and her heel dug in hard beneath his shoulder blade until he verbalized a capitulatory “Ow.” It came out more like “Ouhm.”

She leaned into it a little harder for just a moment, but she had slipped out of her heels to stomp on him in the first place, so Clint was counting it as a victory all around. He relaxed his body into the grass, letting the shade-cool ground draw some of the heat out of him as he breathed through his nose and slowly savored his massive mouthful of deliciously melting mocha espresso goodness. 

“I swear to god, I’m on a team with five-year-olds,” Natasha told an uncaring world in an undertone, crossing her ankles on his spine.

The depths to which she shouldn’t have been surprised by that suddenly changed Clint’s thoughts on the entire matter. He did have righteousness on his side after all. She knew him, better than anyone alive. She should have known the consequences, on a day this hot, of coming unguarded into his reach with an ice cream cone.

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt on this fandom. Any critique welcome.


End file.
